The First Morning

Nate looked at his friend, half confused and half worried. He knew Cameron to be a little adventurous, taking new ways to class, trying new foods on a whim, trying to climb trees, small things like that. Though, sometimes Cameron's choices had worried him and others before they, generally turned out, working out for him. At worst, Cameron would get scrapes and bruises, but that was the extent of his adventures negatively affecting him. An entire forest was a whole different story.

"You sure about this? I mean, I know you usually know what you're doing, but that forest looked pretty big. You sure you can handle it?" Nate watched as Cameron playfully scoffed off the question.

"I've been in forests plenty of times by my house before we moved. I've even been through the woods next to the school. I'm fine. Plus, I know this place. Granted, my knowledge of this world isn't the best, but I've seen what's in the forests a few times before. I have the most knowledge here, and I'm going to use it." Cameron's determined face beamed at Nate, who mulled over his words.

"I can't argue with that logic," Nate started, “Do you want us to go with?" Nate asked. Cameron shook his head.

"Nah, I got this," Cameron reassured. Nate nodded with a small "hmph" and went back to staring at nothing and thinking, now with an emphasis on Cameron and his safety.

The humans stayed in their rooms until it was time for dinner--their first meal in Equestria. It was awkward at first. The differences in their diets became an obstacle when it came to what the humans would eat, but they eventually settled on some fruits and veggies that they could eat. They made small talk in between bites, and soon, the Moon had risen, and everyone went to sleep.

The next morning the ponies and dragon were up early, making breakfast and starting the day right. Starlight greeted Spike in the hallway while she went to check on the new house guests, making sure they were getting settled in nicely and had a sweet sleep. She checked Kendra's room to find that she wasn't there. Starlight assumed that she went to the bathroom earlier and hadn't gotten back, so she checked the boys' room. In the boys' room, she found all three of them, exhausted, sitting on the ground next to a metal rectangle with a screen, chatting, or more like silently arguing, about something she couldn't quite hear. The sight slightly unnerved her. She swallowed and spoke up. "G-good morning, guys."

The three turned their heads in surprise. They didn't hear Starlight come in, and they were all slightly on edge for the past few hours. Due to all the excitement and confusion, and various other emotions of the previous day, the three humans each forgot to turn off their alarms for school the next day. Cameron's first alarm went off at 4:20 A.M. He never took that alarm seriously and instinctively turned it off without thinking about his second alarm. Nate had begun to wake up when his alarm went off at 5:00 A.M. Cameron had woken up again, but his consciousness was still lagging, allowing him to be annoyed by the sound of Nate's alarm. He quickly went back to sleep for the next thirty minutes until the reason the 4:20 alarm exists started going off. By that point, both parties were fully awake and thoroughly annoyed. They both groaned and moaned as they sat up. Kendra's alarm went off a little later than both of the boys' at 5:45 A.M. With the room being similar but emptier than her own at home; it took her a minute to remember she wasn't at home as she stumbled to find her stuff in the dark. Kendra, now not being able to go back to sleep, left her room, and heard Nate and Cameron speaking to each other. She knocked on their door.

"Who is it?" She heard Nate call.

"Kendra," she replied. She didn't have to wait long for a response.

"Go away!" Cameron called out. Kendra rolled her eyes and walked in, much to Cameron's dismay. She shielded her eyes as she walked into the room.

"You guys aren't naked, are you?" Kendra asked while she probed in front of her to make sure she bump into anything.

"No." Nate's voice this time spoke out. She uncovered her eyes to find the two boys huddled around Nate's laptop, staring at her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, tilting her head.

Cameron made eye contact with Kendra before saying, "We have a problem." What transpired was a long, winded, and highly argumentative conversation on how they would use their electronics during their stay in the land of Equestria. With no outlets, the three couldn't charge their phones and laptops. On top of that, they couldn't use the internet or cell service either, so they would have to resort to using the apps that didn't require the internet to entertain them. Altogether, they had three phone chargers and three laptops and three phones and three laptop chargers. The laptop chargers were virtually useless, but the laptops were beneficial. They hatched an idea and planned to keep them having their phones on them for as long as possible in Equestria.

"So, we're all in agreement on the plan, right?" Cameron asked after their two-hour deliberation. Nate nodded, but Kendra still looked annoyed.

"Why does my laptop have to be used first? We're gonna use all of our eventually, so there's no point in having to be mine. If I volunteered mine to go first, it would be different, but you decided that my laptop would be the first." Kendra set her gaze across from her to Cameron, looking for an answer.

"Our laptops have more things of use and importance and entertaining. What if we have a worst-case scenario and need something to entertain us immediately, whose laptop are we going to use? Not yours. Nate has games and music. I have images, manga, and music. What do you have?" Cameron crossed his arms and tilted his head as if daring her to answer even though they already knew. Kendra wasn't going to back down quickly, though.

"I'll have you know that I-"

"G-good morning, guys." Starlight interrupted, much to everyone's surprise. The humans whipped their heads around, catching Starlight's unnerved gaze. On instinct, they tried to act natural, but, with nothing to lean on, they just sat there and stared back with awkward smiles plastered upon their faces. They stared at each other, Starlight waiting for a response and the humans not understanding why she was standing the doorway until Nate realized what Starlight had said.

"Oh. Uh...good morning." Nate's late reaction rang in the room and settled. Cameron and Kendra tried not to face-palm, realizing too late what the proper response was. The silence after was unbearable. Everyone in this exchange of awkward silence looked up and down, not wanting to look at each other. Everyone wanted to break the silence, but no one knew how to do so without being even more awkward. Starlight wanted to get out of there fast so, because she couldn't think of anything to say, she slowly backed out of the doorway, closing the door as she did so with her magic. She stood looking at the door, mentally berating herself for not trying to make the situation less awkward before walking off to the kitchen, failing to make sense of what she saw.

The humans, on the other hand, stared at the door, mentally reeling from what had just transpired. They soon just let the moment pass, laughing at themselves about how bad they are in situations like that.

After eating a quick breakfast, the humans went back to their rooms, rechecking the plan to make sure that it was understood and followed. Cameron reached inside his gym bag and grabbed his spare shirt. Luckily, he hadn't used it too much in gym class yet as the workouts were relatively light and manageable, so putting it on didn't feel uncomfortable.

"You out?" Nate, seeing Cameron change shirts, inquired. Cameron nodded and begun his walk to the Everfree Forest. He made it out of the castle with no problems. Twilight and Starlight were hard at work with research while Spike was out helping Rarity by looking after cat Opalescence while she was gone for the evening. Walking through Ponyville wasn't even a significant problem, either. The inhabitants of Ponyville acted similarly to the day before, this time more confused why he was outside by himself than the sight of him. Still, they figured if the Princess let him out, he wasn't dangerous and let Cameron be as he walked past the edge of town, back to where he and his friends landed with no recollection of how they got there. He was going to start his side-quest in his call to adventure stage in his self-proclaimed heroes journey. He thought this as he passed Fluttershy's house and stood at the entrance of the Everfree Forest.